Work stuff again, sorry
The axiom of tackling the easier problems before the harder ones doesn't apply in the support line. While we can prioritise personal tasks and delay those that need the least attention till later, all cases in support are of equal importance and have the same objective. Fix the problem, address the issue, get what the customer wants. So the one case I have that's been on the backburner for weeks has to be finalised and closed now, before I even start addressing the easier case that also is of pressing need.
It's a logic loop - one of those programming errors that belays any action, that instils inaction. And the worrying thing is that I revel at the going back and forth and back and forth, all as an excuse to procrastinate and prevent any work from actually being done.
To be fair, it's just the one case and a unique one where I'm to provide what I perceive to be a lengthy recommendation - I have to be specific, tedious and technical. But it may be that I'm just over-complicating what may actually be a simple task and that the customer doesn't really have the same high expectation as I picture him to have.
I'm off to do that now. If there's one thing I'm learning at work, it's to never, ever let cases drag on for too long. It just pulls everything else down - especially when one is as busy as I have been for the past 2 weeks at work.
Speaking of which, our Australian managers were over in KL the past week - darren the medium-head honcho for a major part of the Microsoft account and david who's the business manager for initial response, dev, apps and plats. I'm not too clear on the specifics but I know that we report to dave via ms. pure fluff and dave reports to darren. It didn't really make much of a difference to us in KL, since they were here on what I assume are the quarterly KL ops meetings (hence the appearance of many other Austalian managers) but it did result in the KL tier 3 team getting lunch in Grappa. And that was basically that.
There are many flaws to the method of management, and melodramatically so because of the nature of the business - call centre people being by definition a chatty lot, many of whom are rather non-technical despite the technical support job description. The basic flaw to KL operations is that upper management is quite unwilling to invest any further than necessary into operations, as the entire premise of the KL branch is to reduce the cost of call centre operations, generally half of which is still based in Australia. This rather nasty situation is underlined by the following facts - a) there are no salary increments, b) there are no bonuses or incentives and c) there are very little opportunities to further one's career, not for genuinely technical people anyway. 'Course, there's still the promotion aspect of things and if the management acts astutely, they will change my status to senior engineer. Otherwise, I'll last at the very most, a year in the company. Minimum I would think is 6 months.
It's a shame, really. I genuinely love problem solving.
It's a logic loop - one of those programming errors that belays any action, that instils inaction. And the worrying thing is that I revel at the going back and forth and back and forth, all as an excuse to procrastinate and prevent any work from actually being done.
To be fair, it's just the one case and a unique one where I'm to provide what I perceive to be a lengthy recommendation - I have to be specific, tedious and technical. But it may be that I'm just over-complicating what may actually be a simple task and that the customer doesn't really have the same high expectation as I picture him to have.
I'm off to do that now. If there's one thing I'm learning at work, it's to never, ever let cases drag on for too long. It just pulls everything else down - especially when one is as busy as I have been for the past 2 weeks at work.
Speaking of which, our Australian managers were over in KL the past week - darren the medium-head honcho for a major part of the Microsoft account and david who's the business manager for initial response, dev, apps and plats. I'm not too clear on the specifics but I know that we report to dave via ms. pure fluff and dave reports to darren. It didn't really make much of a difference to us in KL, since they were here on what I assume are the quarterly KL ops meetings (hence the appearance of many other Austalian managers) but it did result in the KL tier 3 team getting lunch in Grappa. And that was basically that.
There are many flaws to the method of management, and melodramatically so because of the nature of the business - call centre people being by definition a chatty lot, many of whom are rather non-technical despite the technical support job description. The basic flaw to KL operations is that upper management is quite unwilling to invest any further than necessary into operations, as the entire premise of the KL branch is to reduce the cost of call centre operations, generally half of which is still based in Australia. This rather nasty situation is underlined by the following facts - a) there are no salary increments, b) there are no bonuses or incentives and c) there are very little opportunities to further one's career, not for genuinely technical people anyway. 'Course, there's still the promotion aspect of things and if the management acts astutely, they will change my status to senior engineer. Otherwise, I'll last at the very most, a year in the company. Minimum I would think is 6 months.
It's a shame, really. I genuinely love problem solving.